by R. E. Vance
All that to say that the skull is friggin’ hard and few are harder than mine. So when I was hit flat on the back of my head, all it did was knock me down, sending shooting stars across my vision and giving me a mind-numbing headache. I turned to see a scruffy HuMan holding the bat.
“Batter up!” He chuckled at his pun through crooked teeth.
“Good one,” a voice said. “Looks like someone ruined your hotel.”
I looked up to see EightBall and several more HuMans, laughing as they surrounded a less-than-pleased Judith—she must have come across the HuMans on her way up from the basement. They should have been in jail for at least another two nights.
The kid, as if reading my mind, pointed to my attacker and said, “BallSack’s mom bailed us out. Guess not everyone’s given up on us, yet.”
Little opportunistic bastards—when the explosion happened, I guess they decided to take advantage of the situation. Hell, they were probably planning on taking responsibility for it, a nice little press release sent out by the HuMans Weekly newsletter.
“EightBall,” I said, getting to my feet. BallSack took another swing at the back of my thigh, but I stepped to the side. The kid missed, the momentum causing him to fall forward. Ignoring him, I locked eyes on EightBall. “I know you’re not going to believe me, but your timing couldn’t be worse.”
“I should have suspected,” Judith said in an unforgiving tone, “that you would know miscreants such as these. I warned my daughter not to marry a man like you.”
“Really, Judith,” I said. “Now?”
EightBall and his three thug friends started laughing. “Daughter? Married? Don’t tell me that you married this ghost’s daughter? What is she? A white sheet with the eyes cut out?”
“You would be safer not to speak of my Bella in such terms,” Judith growled as the chair from behind my desk flew right at one of the thugs standing next to EightBall. It hit him square on the head, knocking him to the ground hard. Way to go, Judith! Got to hand it to her, when she’s pissed, she’s dangerous.
Things started to shake around the room. Judith was about to go into a tantrum and that would cost her time. A whole bunch of it. As much as I’d like to spend less of it with her, I couldn’t let her burn herself out.
“Judith,” I said, “please calm down. Time, remember? We talked about this.”
She met my eyes, fury in hers, and for a moment I thought she was too far gone in her poltergeist’s rage to calm herself down, but then my mother-in-law took a deep breath and the room stopped rattling.
BallSack got to his feet and tried for another swing at me. This time I was ready for it, planning on taking the brunt of the blow on my side. But instead of swinging, he let the bat drop. I turned to see a petite woman in an old Victorian dress—complete with bonnet and all—leap into the fray, her teeth flashing red as they sank into his side. Sandy! Her bite was definitely worse than her bark.
Everyone looked down at the five-foot-nothing doily of fury and I took the opportunity to punch EightBall square in the nose—I can be just as opportunistic as the next guy. He went down, but got right back up, pulling a switchblade from only the GoneGods knew where, and lunged at me at the exact moment when reality decided to go out the window.
↔
Have you ever worried that gravity will suddenly disappear, causing you to float off to oblivion?
Yeah, me neither. Until the moment when EightBall lunged at me, blade in hand, and the air in the room lost all of its weight, causing me to feel naked even though I was fully dressed.
The practical effect of suddenly losing gravity was that EightBall’s feet lifted off the ground, the momentum of his attack propelling him forward at a pace that would embarrass a turtle. EightBall flailed his arms wildly as he tried to gain balance in a room where up and down became abstract concepts. He looked like a man falling sideways, his face a hodgepodge of confusion, shock and fear.
Not that I blamed him. We all wore looks of surprise as our feet left the ground. The rest of us had all been standing relatively still, so the effect on us was that of simple levitation. We looked like a bunch of astronauts floating in a low-gravity environment—except that, as far as I knew, the One Spire Hotel had not teleported to the Moon.
At least we all were breathing normally. Thank the GoneGods for small miracles.
EightBall hit the wall on the other side of the room with a silent thud as the kid mouthed, “What the hell?” All of us tried to scream, but we were on Mute, our mouths contorted in shock as nothing came out. Sandy’s neck was outstretched as her lips formed an O shape from which no howl emerged. And I’m ashamed to admit it, but I joined right in with the silent chorus of horror.
I guess Hollywood got it right—no one can hear you scream in space.
Only Judith was calm. Having no feet to speak of, she was used to floating around, so I guess not much changed for her. Despite the obvious panic we were all in, she still managed to give me a look that clearly blamed me for everything that was going on. To her, I was a criminal, so why not add “broke the laws of physics” to my Rolodex of felonies?
“Human,” spoke a voice, breaking the silence, and flat-soled heels clicked on the ground. “Yes … Indeed.”
↔
“Holy shit!” I tried to scream, throwing up my hand in victory. “I was right!” I mouthed as Grinner walked in. What can I say? Celebrate every victory you can … Trust me, they are few and far between.
Even in this silent room I could smell him.
“Answers,” he said, his voice somehow penetrating his spell, “so many answers, but never the right questions.” As he walked past me, he sniffed before grabbing my arm and spinning me ’round and around. I felt sympathy for my clothes in the tumble dryer, and swore at that moment to always hang them up.
Spin, spin, spin—I saw the others floating around. Some of them had managed to latch onto one another, only making them larger objects in motion. ’Round, ’round and around—I saw Grinner go to my desk and look through my papers. He stopped at the form that Joseph had written his name on.
“Joseph,” he said to no one in particular, “of all the names the Universe had bestowed upon you, Joseph is by far the most human.” He paused and cocked his head. “The stench of mortality has finally taken you. Perhaps Joseph is a fitting name to have been your last.”
’Round and around—and I saw Judith about three meters away, rolling her eyes vertically in opposition to my horizontal spin.
’Round and around—Grinner opened the top drawer, a look of delight spreading his grin even wider as he saw the box. “How simple the mortal mind is. What is plain is discarded as worthless? And to think the gods chose you as their pets.”
’Round, ’round—Judith was no longer across the room, but right next to me. I don’t know if she was trying to help, or just wanted to get me killed, but either way, she pushed me in the direction of Grinner with a force that must have been backed by a bit of poltergeist fury. I was flying right toward him and did the only thing I could do—I stuck out my leg. The result was a roundhouse kick that would have had Bruce Lee eating his heart out. I connected with Grinner’s friggin’ smile, knocking him on his ass. Hard.
He dropped the box.
Wait a minute, he dropped the box! As if my realization made it happen, all of us came crashing down on the ground at the same time.
I grabbed the plain-looking thing and tossed it to Sandy with a “Catch!” She caught it in the air with her mouth and ran off on all fours like a Labrador at the park.
She leaped outside and I had just enough time to see her hand the box to Penemue—he must have flown down from the hole formerly known as Joseph’s room—and him unfurl his wings before ten tons of invisible earth took me to the ground.
Well, at least the world had stopped spinning. Thank the GoneGods for small miracles.
↔
It happened so fast. Penemue couldn’t have been more than a few feet off the ground before Gri
nner trotted past me and pointed to the sky. Penemue fell hard, his wings outstretched but weighed to the ground, and Grinner picked the box up where it had fallen. I tried to push against the invisible force that held me down, but all I managed was to move my head around and survey the room. Every one of us was lying flat, even Judith, like we were all under a blanket made of lead.
I looked over at Grinner’s face and I could see age lines starting to form around his lips. He was burning through time and if I pushed him a bit more, I might send him into a rage, let him burn himself out. Of course, I ran the risk that he’d burn himself out by lifting a mountain and dropping it on our heads.
“You!” I screamed out. “Yeah, you! Cheshire Cat!”
Grinner looked down at me and, with a light skip, came over. He held the box in front of my face and said, “Cat? I am no cat … but the beasts please me. They shall be welcome in my new kingdom.”
“Ahh, screw you! New kingdom, my ass … You’re just a two-bit worthless Other that the gods decided to leave behind. Maybe if you were worthy, they would have taken you with them.”
He pushed down his index finger like one would flick ash off a cigarette, and the force that held me down doubled.
I couldn’t breathe. I could feel the strain as my innards flattened out, vying for space in my torso.
I pushed against the massive, invisible weight. Come on, you Fanatic, the clock is ticking. “Is … that … all … you … got?” I grunted as I pushed myself up.
He redoubled the force and I crumpled to my knees. I fought it and I could actually see the strain on his face. I was resisting. But then he lifted his hands over his head, the box plummeting straight to the ground and landing, miraculously, in one piece. Grinner gave it no notice; he looked like he was literally pulling down the sky.
I fell flat on my back.
“But an answer I shall give,” he grinned. His eyes betrayed a bit of surprise at how much of a fight I managed to put up against him. He displayed the same shock a lion might when coming up against a particularly feisty lamb. “For I am here to answer the second question each one of you asked when you finally understood that your gods were really gone. But before I do, there is something I need from you. I need you to dream.”
“Like I said, screw …” I tried to finish the sentence but suddenly I was very tired. Very, very tired.
He was sucking out the oxygen. I tried taking shallow breaths, slowing my heart down, but it was impossible. There wasn’t enough air to keep me awake. I started to fade.
↔
There is this girl whom I love very much. Every time I sleep, she rescues me from the darkness that chases me, and tonight is no different. Except whereas she is usually happy to see me, this time she greets me with a frantic concern.
“Wake up!” she screams. “You have to wake up!”
↔
“Huh?” I said, opening my eyes, fighting the fatigue.
“She waits,” Grinner hissed, “go to her.”
So tired, I … I …
↔
“Oh, hello, Bella,” I say as my wife comes into view once more. “It’s so good to …”
But Bella does not let me finish.
“Wake up!” she screams again. “Wake up! Wake up!”
↔
“WAKE!” a thunderous voice screamed from outside my hotel, and with it the air returned to normal.
I woke to see Grinner no longer concerned with me, his head turned to the entrance of the hotel. Whoever was outside must have scared the bejesus out of him because for the first time since I’d met the Fanatic, he wasn’t smiling.
“You? You are gone,” Grinner said, his concentration broken just enough that I was able to stand. It still felt like my black collarless jacket was made of ball bearings.
Standing just beyond the threshold of the reception was a young black man with a military buzz cut. He was maybe in his early twenties and wore jeans and a simple white, button-up short-sleeve shirt. “I am here,” he said.
“To fill the Void,” Grinner said, his tone implying an answer rather than a question.
The young man shook his head. “It is no longer our world to meddle with.”
“No,” Grinner retorted. “That is why they left. To start again and to let us start again.”
“That is not so,” the young man said, his eyes starting to glow.
I grabbed the box and put it in my pocket. I stood, only for the world to spin around. After being denied oxygen for some time, even the most ineffective bat-swings to the head can do some damage. As the world grayed out, I saw the two major-league Others face off in what must have been one of the most epic battles this world has ever seen.
Too bad I didn’t get to see any of it.
Chapter 2
Spiteful Angels
“Jean,” Bella says in a hurried voice, “you shouldn’t be here. Not like this.”
I can hear her voice, hear her breathing, but in the enveloping gloom, I can’t see her. Which can only mean one thing—I failed to outrun the darkness. “Why not? This is the end, right?” I say. “My last dream of you before I go.”
“I don’t know.” Her tone is softer now.
“I do.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you’re here. I always knew that in the end—my end—you’d be here to help me go over to the other side. Not like how I wasn’t there for you.” I can’t finish the thought—how I wasn’t there for her as she bled on a cold, strange concrete floor.
“Oh, hush. You were there. Believe me—it was you I saw before my end,” she says. “And if this is your end then I am glad to have found you. There is nowhere else I’d rather be.”
I feel the warmth of her as she draws in closer, and I lean into it. I know that she is just a dream but I am so happy to be with her.
Silence. But in the black, it is not just silence. It is the absence of sound. And I have never been very good at the absence of sound.
“So, what do we talk about? I mean, how does one spend their last moments alive?”
The darkness is pierced by a chuckle. “I don’t know. Remembering the good times, I suppose.”
“Ahh, the good times? So many to choose from. Do you have anything particular in mind?”
“Yeah,” she says, “I do … but since you’re the one dying, why don’t you go first?”
“OK,” I say, “how about your thighs locked around mine. Like that time on the beach …”
“Jean!” she says, a hand lightly hitting my chest. “It’s always about sex with you. I was thinking of something a little more … sweet.”
“Like what?” It is strange how this feels so much like the old times and—dream or not—I can’t think of a better way to clock out than this. “OK, you go first.”
“You’ll just think it’s silly.”
“Bella,” I say, “I’m dying because a creature with a Cheshire Cat smile has literally sucked the air out the room because he wants some plain-looking box an old man gave me. I don’t think there’s anything you could say or do at this point that I’d think was silly.” I am surprised at how calm I am. If I had known dying would be so easy, I would have tried it a long time ago.
“OK,” she says, “… watching TV.”
“I’m about to kick the bucket and the only memory you want to share with me is watching TV? I was expecting something like maybe the first time I told you that I loved you or when I proposed. Is there a particular show you have in mind? Because if it’s Sex and the City I’m outta here.”
“No, silly,” she laughs. “Those were grand moments that punctuated our lives. The special moments. But they’re not what I miss the most. I miss being with you, lying on a couch and doing nothing. I miss being bored next to you. I miss hearing you breathe and feeling the warmth of your body. I miss watching TV.”
“Oh,” I say, noticing a light off in the distance. It looks like the evening’s first star, a pinprick in the blanket of night. I ignore i
t. “I miss that, too.”
“Look,” she says, pointing at the dot of light, “it looks like this isn’t the end, after all.”
“Are you sure it’s not the light at the end of the tunnel?” I say as the dot grows larger. It gets closer and closer until I am, quite literally, hit by light.
↔
Light getting shot into your brain makes gulping a cold Slurpee feel like a reasonable thing to do.
I barely opened my eyes to see Marty hissing about an inch away from my nose. Then I focused on the rest of her. Medusa was sitting at my side, a hand over my head. Judging by how warm my skull was, she burned a bit of time to save me.
“How long?” I asked, the words catching in my throat.
“You were out for an hour,” she said.
“No, not that. How long did you burn to wake me up?”
Medusa turned away, not answering. I guess it’d gotten around how much I don’t like time spent on me.
“How long?” I repeated, immediately regretting the harshness of my tone.
“About a day,” she said, still not looking at me.
I grunted. Partly because I was still in pain, partly because my hotel was destroyed, but mostly because I hated time being wasted on me. Immortal creatures who no longer have forever should save their time for things that matter. Like living, not helping a stupid hotelier with his headache.
Medusa hunched away and from the glare Marty gave me I figured I hurt her feelings. Great job, Jean, she was just trying to help.
I started to formulate my apology, but couldn’t think of anything to say other than, “I’m sorry. I guess I’m a bit grumpy given everything that happened. Seriously. I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that.”